One Bad Apple Can’t Spoil Diana’s Day

Suc, Albania – Debar, North Macedonia

Well, we had another good day generally. And I’ll tell you about that. But the headline is on the less idyllic side. After nine months of never really encountering a truly negative person, we happened upon a pretty yucky situation today. 

We are on a pretty big climb – probably 2,000 feet or so over 5-6 miles. This is the tail end of it – and we’re negotiating a pretty steep, steady grade. Also, a big headwind has come up and we are battling that as well. 

Now, Diana and I tend to separate a little on climbs like this. I generally end up a few hundred yards ahead of her, depending upon how long and how steep the hill is. And, as per normal on a climb, I’m ahead of her now. 

It’s a beautiful area, but there aren’t many people around, as it’s kind of remote. As we go up, I pass a guy on the side of the road. Young kid – probably somewhere in the 17-20 year old range. He asks if I’m Spanish: “España?”

”No, American,” I say, and I push on. 

A few minutes later I decide to stop, get some water, and wait for Diana. I find a good spot – generally with something like a guard rail that I can lean the bike against – and pull over. 

When I look back I see that Diana is going about the same pace as someone who is walking up the hill. Which is about right. Between the steep grade, the wind in our faces, and the loaded bikes, sometimes we are not going much faster than pedestrians. 

As they approach, though, I see that the guy walking behind her is the same guy who asked if I was Spanish. In retrospect, I don’t think Diana knew the guy was still behind her – because as she bikes up, she says something like: “I’m glad you stopped. This creepy guy was following me and was masturbating . . .”

I tell her that the guy is still there, and I move back behind her so as to provide some kind of shield between her and the guy. As we go along I tell the guy to leave us alone. I’m not sure he understands, but whether he does or not, he’s not changing his behavior. He’s walking briskly to keep up – and he’s not slowing down. 

As we’re moving along Diana is filling me in on the details of her encounter. She passed the guy and didn’t think much of it. But then, a few minutes, later he popped out from behind the guard rail. 

Again, she didn’t think much of the situation. “Hi,” she said to him again.

But then she noticed that he had his pants down, he was showing her his genitals, and he was masturbating. At that point she sped up, and, I think, thought she had left him behind.

Soon after that she came to where I was . . .

Once I understood this whole story I started to become more hostile with this perverted jerk. 

“Get away from us!”

”No bro,” he replied angrily – pointing toward Diana. 

I guess I don’t know what he was really saying, but my interpretation is that he was mad because she was only wearing her sports bra. 

“Get away!” I say.

”No bro!” And now he’s doing something with his pants and/or genitals. 

There’s something very wrong with this young man.

Eventually I lose my patience: “Get the F___ away from us!”

Again, I don’t know what exactly he said, but what I “hear” is something like: “She needs to wear more than a F____ing bra . . .”

At this point he picks up a big rock – like the size of a brick – only more jagged. 

Seriously. This was not good. 

I know I’m tongue in cheek with a lot of stuff I write about. But this was not cool. Diana is still biking, and not looking back, but I am kind of freaking out. If he throws that rock at one of us we are going to be seriously maimed. 

“He has a rock. Let’s go,” I exhort Diana.

She picks up the pace, and we’re breathing hard now. But we’re not losing pervert guy. He’s picking up the pace as well, kind of jogging along with us. 

Eventually he yells out again. I’m not sure what – something about “sexy” – all I know is that it was scary enough that Diana decided to just cross the highway – so that there were cars between herself and this crazy, demented young man.

Shortly after she crossed the road he finally gave up. 

Kind of a yucky interlude. 

I guess I can’t help but feel like this incident reflects a little bit of the twisted orthodox type view of women that some Muslim men seem to have. This idea that women should not expose any skin. Or that they are somehow inviting problems by wearing a sports bra. It’s somehow the woman’s fault that the guy can’t control his urges. 

Or maybe another explanation: there are just a few bad apples in every batch…

Many people would be shaken up after an event like this. Not my tough-as-nails wife. 

Diana’s attitude? Why should some yucky guy wreck her day . . .?

And, indeed, both before and after this incident, the day was good. 

We started with a pretty huge climb – capped with a tunnel-bridge-tunnel combination that was a pretty amazing feat of engineering. Later we learned that all this came with a new road – that was completed only one or two years ago. Where it used to take 5-6 hours to make the journey by car, now it takes like 1.5. 

And the afternoon was interesting as well. More great mountain scenes.

A border crossing into North Macedonia. 

And some adventures in camping.

Diana found two campgrounds in or near the town we wanted to stop in. The first was called something like Circle K Camping. It was right in town and essentially in someone’s backyard. The second was on a lake.

Kind of an obvious choice – especially for Diana.

Unfortunately, this “campground” – called Lake View Camping on Google Maps – turned out to not really exist. Or, rather, it does exist. One can camp here. But there is no official campground. No shower. No bathroom. That kind of thing. 

We wouldn’t have found it at all, except Arthur, this guy we met at the grocery store, told us that there was, indeed, camping, and that it “wouldn’t be a problem” to set up a tent there.

When we arrived at the lake where the campground was supposed to be it was kind of a rough scene. Half-completed construction. Debris and some garbage lying around. A pretty scraggly beach. And no flat ground. 

When we asked a woman who was renting some little paddle boats, she told us there was no camping. But, soon, another guy came up and told us that camping was possible, on the other side of this restaurant complex, down the beach. We headed there, it turned out to be somewhat nicer, we set up our tent, and enjoyed a nice swim in the lake. 

We ended up meeting several people through the campground. A guy named Maxi is the town veterinarian, and Maxi rents kayaks to people. We met him when he came down to rent his kayaks to some other tourists. Like so many people around here: generous and kind. He offered to let us sleep in the little trailer he has parked on the beach. 

Later we met Kaia (sp?). Kaia is Albanian, but grew up in Debar (the town we are in) in North Macedonia, and now he lives in Staten Island in New York. Kaia and Maxi explained that there are about 20,000 Debar-ites that live in the United States these days. 

Kaia has lived in the States about ten years. The first five or so in Beloit, Wisconsin. (He didn’t like the cold…) The last five or six in New York City. He explained a lot about the Balkans and Albania that maybe I didn’t understand. 

Are you ready? Today’s history lesson . . .

First off, the former Yugoslavia included Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. I knew that, at some level. But what I didn’t know, or understand, is that all these people can talk to each other using a common language – basically south Slavic. Oh, and throw Bulgaria in with these folks as well – because they have basically the same language . . . (Note that they call them different languages, but from what I can tell it’s basically like whether you have a Southern or a Brooklyn accent …).

Albania is kind of the which-one-doesn’t-fit-with-the-other nation of the Balkans. They weren’t part of Yugoslavia. Instead, they had their own South Korea-like brand of Communism, and they have a completely different language; more closely related to Greek than Slavic. 

There are Albanians living in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia. I guess in the early 2000s the Macedonian Albanians grew tired of feeling oppressed and there was a civil war. 

Okay, two other things I wanted to cover quickly . . .

Baklava.

Best dessert item in the world. Filo dough. Walnuts. Honey. Butter. All gooey and yummy. Love it!

Sadly, not available in many places. And when it is available it’s not always good. But there is a place in Minneapolis that has great baklava – Olive & Lamb. One of our daughter’s good college friends and roommates, Maggie, works there. She says there’s an old lady that makes their baklava. She brings some back for me on occasion. All dripping with honey butter stuff. Mmm.

Almost makes me want to bike home just thinking about it…

But, fortunately, I don’t need to. Because we’re in the right neighborhood now. Albania, being kind of long lost Greek cousins, are, apparently, great baklava makers. Yesterday, I found a bakery that had it. I ordered two pieces. When the ladies at the store gave it to me they said something like: Mmm, mmm.”

Which I took to mean, “This is so good! You won’t regret the purchase.”

They were right. Turned out that the pieces were enormous, but I still downed both of them that evening… Diana thought I would get sick from all the syrup, which really makes me question her credentials as a physician. After all, baklava is one of the very basic food groups… Right there with pain au chocolate…

But even with a small gap in Dr. Liu’s medical knowledge, I guess I’m still glad I married her – thirty years ago, today.

That’s right. It’s our thirtieth anniversary. We’re celebrating with an Airbnb with a laundry machine, homemade dinner of some kind, and maybe a movie.

So don’t bug us. It will be very romantic. That’s what North Macedonia is known for… romance.

Oh, the cover photo? That’s as close as we come to seeing purple lupine here, which we’ve come to think of as our anniversary flower.